Christmas 2013 • JOY

With a brand-new building inherited from our merge and huge holiday celebration fastly approaching we had to think of a very fast really nice Christmas stage option for the holiday season. Lately I've been really into the marquee style lettering and I look into buying some from Etsy or some local business owners but they were all outrageously extremely expensive for the large sized ones that I wanted.... not at all church budget friendly. The more I looked at the marquee letters the more I realized we could make one that looked exactly like that without the metal and making them extremely cheap. I looked around for some large pieces of cardboard (I ended up finding them behind a big lots in their dumpster) and since it's Christmas time there's all kinds of really neat lightbulbs for Christmas trees and for outdoor decorations. We found some large bold light bulbs that were clear to put inside of the cardboard to make a mimic Marquis letter. 

We cut the letters out

 Then added a rim with longer strips of cardboard to the sides and duct taped it with white duct tape on the edges to make a frame around the letters

Then we used a drillbit that the gardener to check if I don't how to use that I'm to make the same size holes as the lightbulbs in the letters. 

Sidenote it is really important to count the lightbulbs and evenly space them and mark them on the letters before you start cutting into it we didn't do it this way the first time - and had to remake another letter because it looked like a mess.

After we got the letter we got the holes cut into the cardboard letters we smoothed the folds out with sandpaper. And we took them outside and pay them with spray paint with a white bass, then we spray-painted them all over and silver. After the silver was dry we then using hammered copper spray paint just to accent in some places on the edges so that it looked like a warm piece of metal. 

Really like how it turned out!!

Cheap Christmas Stage

Series : Christmas

We took the 4 sections of Lycra-spandex and gathered the top, then put heavy wooden boards, about 2-3 ft wide at the bases to make them into a long, triangle shape. then shined can lights with Green Gels in the middle and had red uplighting and downlighting to give it the surrounded red look.
I also bought huge bouncy balls from the dollar store and spray painted them silver and red to look like Christmas ornaments, and while the paint was wet covered them in glitter. (the glitter all flaked off so it was totally useless but seemed like a good idea at the time. Also - the Spray paint never really dried because I bought a cheap spray paint - lesson learned - always buy the more expensive spray paint - it is worth the extra $3-$4 to not make a total mess of everything and not have to re-paint it every time you use it.)

We hung all of that and decided the center of the stage looked too heavy so I found 2 yard Christmas trees and placed them at the ends of the stage and they balanced the whole look.

This whole stage cost about $75. Boom.

Unstuck

Series: UNSTUCK

We bought insulation board, duct taped the edged and spray painted them black. Then We used a light and posed in front of them to cast shadows that looked like people pushing something huge and heavy. Using chalk, we traced the shadows then filled it in with white paint. I used can lights to shine onto them, so that the stage lights wouldn't cause a weird shadow on the bumpy paint. 

LYCRA SPANDEX!

Lycra Spandex is AWESOME in stage design. It is extremely versatile, stretchy, and looks modern and high impact without having to try very hard. I put grommets at every corner and in-between big design series, I would throw these up as fillers, or use them in a design of their own. If you find this fabric on sale, BUY IT!!

Palette Stage

Series: (I don't actually remember this one...)

I found a few clean palettes - painted them a light grey - then put red Gels on our can lights and shined them in front and back of them.

Cheap and easy.

Applause Stage

Series: Applause

This message series was all about encouraging - telling us we are doing better than we think we are! Seeing ourselves through God's eyes.

I took insulation board and cut out word bubbles - then painted them with the spray paint for plastic outside furniture (nothing else would stick without chipping off). Then I painted encouraging words on each panel. We hung them with fishing wire duct taped to the back and hung over the rafters with cement filled buckets as weights. It was easy and fun - Since we were a mobile church at the time I constantly had to think of how designs that would take 20 minutes to set up and tear down and that would be sturdy enough to be moved 3 times a weekend. 

Lamp Light Stage - I saw the light?

Series: No Perfect People Allowed

This was one of the first stage designs we did! Having no idea where to start - I found a stage that was at a small venue concert for The Fray - it was super simple - just a ton of lamps all over the stage. I called everyone I knew and asked if they had any extra lamps they could part with for 4 or 5 weeks. I collected about 25 lamps and we spread them all over the stage and dimmed all of the lights in the auditorium and came up with an intimate, hipster-ish, stage that we were happy with!